Elegant Combinations for Garden and Container

Tag Archives: Edible

There are all of the text book, expected reasons to love fall foliage of course. But, we like to keep you on your toes with ideas and combinations that might stretch your design muscles. Even friendly partners of fall foliage counts!

Number 1: The awe-inspiring world of conifers for fall. No matter where you live there are incredible options to feature conifers in the landscape year round. From diminutive to giant, there is an incredible conifer option to fill every situation. Whether a Lemon Cypress or the Italian Cypress as above, exclamation points are helpful when making design points.Gold is something that we often talk about in this blog. When it comes to conifers, gold can be a stylish and showy option in a cold climate for fall. It stands out beautifully against anything you show it against. Many gardeners don’t realize that there are even conifers that change color in the fall and winter. Cryptomeria is one of our favorites that turns a lovely burnished red in autumn.Number 2: Now add grasses to your conifers and fall landscapes and you get even more design inspiration options! This Little Bluestem grass is the MOST divine color in fall against the blue of the Weeping blue Atlas Cedar.These golden arborvitae are another way to show off the extraordinary color of the Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) grass in autumn.We also love the tall blond amazingness that is Karl Foerster grass that brings such a strict verticality to the lateral structure of this pine.The fluffy puffiness of this stipa is an interesting echo of shapes against the weeping Japanese maple in the background.Number 3: When late season perennials show off great seed heads that are SO perfect against fall foliage, it’s an easy win-win. Black-eyed Susan’s (Rudbeckia) are a natural choice for a prolific and easy flowering perennial.Astilbe seed heads are one of Team Fine Foliage favorites, shown here against the incredible coral toned bark of the ‘Pacific Fire’ Vine Maple.Number 4: Evergreen plants that change color! WHAAATTTTT? Yes indeed there are many hardy, evergreen plants that DO change color in fall and winter and the Calluna vulgaris above is just one of those options. These fall into the group of plants many of you might know as heath’s and heathers. They come in a rainbow of colors and many change dramatically in fall and winter.The heaths and heathers that change color SO well in fall and winter are also late season bloomers. One more reason to love them!Orange and blue are an unexpected fall and winter combo to be sure!Sedum ‘Angelina’ is a top performer, possibly even a little “too easy” at times, but for all of her potential flaws she has some excellent qualities too. We adore her burnished apricot tones in fall and winter and rely on them after she is done with her audacious chartreuse performance in spring and summer.Number 5: Try the not-so-obvious choices for fall and winter interest! This soft leaf yucca lends a tropical feeling and a green-blue color that pairs so well with the traditional fall colors.Speaking of blue! This Donkey-tail Spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites) is an amazing blue textural interest. Mixed here with Sedum ‘Angelina’ before she shows off her russet tones in the cold weather to come, we can still get a taste of that soon to be color when we focus on the INCREDIBLE peeling bark of the paperbark maple (Acer griseum) in this combo.Want to have some function to your fall fashion? Well then grapes might be an excellent way for you to get your fall color and eat it too! These happen to be an ornamental form of the typical edible vine, but you can still eat these grapes though they are smaller.Layer, layer layer! Whether evergreen, grassy, seeded or for the sheer personality of it all, get out there and fall in love with some new ideas for autumn!

Ready to switch your petunias for pumpkins? Here are four ideas you can whip up in no time.

Caramel Flavors

It all begins with the pot, in this case a frost resistant glazed container in rich caramel tones with just a hint of copper. The pheasant tail grass at the back of the design repeats these shades perfectly and creates height while adding a wonderfully airy texture.

The bold mahogany colored foliage of Blondie heuchera separates this grass from the similar texture of golden Everillo carex, an evergreen grass-like plant that drapes down the front of the container. (I love the dense clusters of ginger-cream flowers on this heuchera too).

Soft Touch

No signs of orange here, yet this design will see you through pumpkin season and into spring with style. It also shows how you can easily ‘cheat’ a little. None of these plants were tall enough to be the key element so I simply cut some curly willow stems from the garden and stuck the branches into the pot. When the willow leaves shrivel, run your fingers slowly down the stems to remove them, leaving the contorted bare branches to add sculptural interest and height to the design.

Likewise that interesting green leafy plant in the foreground is Nova Flame mukgenia. It will have glorious fall color and pink blooms in spring – but as a herbaceous perennial it will die back during winter and leave a visual blank spot in the pot as will the tufted hair grass. No problem; add small white pumpkins, pine cones, decorative pebbles or other seasonal accents, removing these in spring to allow for the new growth.

Portable Feast

Bright Lights Swiss chard is a popular vegetable for cooks and gardeners alike and it’s no wonder with such vibrant colors. I selected one with hot-pink stems and burgundy foliage and used it to anchor a rustic pot glazed in deep earth tones.

To brighten things up a trailing Yellowstone Falls heucherella cascades down the side of the pot. Each yellow leaf has a deep burgundy venation, helping to connect it to the colors of both the pot and chard.

To look its best through winter when the dichondra freezes and the mukdenia becomes dormant, I would replace the trailer with golden creeping Jenny and add some silver balls to disguise the sleeping perennial. Voila – ready for the next Holiday!

Thousands of Olympians head to Rio de Janeiro with only one thing on their minds; GOLD. The quest to be best is what they’ve strived for their entire career. They have trained and perfected their sport just the same as we strive to perfect out gardens each year.

As we root on our favorite athletes your landscape is also in competition to show off its best assets too! Now is the time to create a space worthy of a gold medal. Just like Olympians, it can take some hard work to continually achieve gold, but the plants Team Fine Foliage will show you today are already winners without the all of the sweat.

To go for gold, contenders must embody certain characteristics. A low-maintenance plant with multiple-seasons of beauty that is suited for the space and climate and is pest and disease resistant will be leaps and bounds ahead. Plus, champions must provide added benefits to people and the planet. But when our winners have Fine Foliage, that is a DOUBLE win!

In the photo above you have our first Gold Medalist for Edibles: BrazelBerries® Pink Icing™ blueberry. With breathtaking spring and fall foliage, Pink Icing is sure to win any competition. Spring brings a lovely new foliage color that has varying shades of pink mixed with blue and deeper greens. In winter, Pink Icing’s foliage takes on a stunning iridescent turquoise blue foliage hue, which looks striking when planted en masse.

Speaking of four seasons of interest, these are the delicate blooms on one incredible blueberry from last spring. Can you believe they are blooming AGAIN right now?

Just take a gander at how handsome that incredible edible Olympian is in the summer landscape with its beautiful perennial team mates!

When you have a GOLD MEDALIST that has great foliage as this blueberry does, you can use it in the landscape partnering with other shrubs that make it shine! Above is gorgeous blueberry foliage with Abelia ‘Kaleidoscope’.

Speaking of plants that will have more than one season of interest; August happens to be a great time to get your fall greens started too. Why not choose edibles that can strut like supermodel Gisele Bunchen in the opening ceremony?

The seed catalogs are piling up on the coffee table and my notebook is filling up as I list the varieties of flowers and vegetables I’d like to grow this year. But what about growing some foliage plants for my garden and containers too? Ornamental edibles, annuals, biennials and perennials are all possible and they will save me money for bigger ticket items such as trees and shrubs.

Here are a few to consider.

Ornamental Edibles

This is the easiest place to start; grow some ornamental edibles to tuck into your landscape and containers this year. Lettuce, kale, chard, beet and herbs are all perfect candidates that will do double duty for taste and good looks. Renee’s Garden has an outstanding selection.

Annuals

All done and dusted in a single year but they give so much to the garden they are definitely worth growing yourself if you need more than just one or two.

Coleus

A trio of coleus with Japanese forest grass and black sweet potato vine makes a stunning combo for the shade.

You may not be able to find all your favorite varieties as seed but there are still oodles of these colorful annuals to choose from. If you have extensive shade gardens this could be a really inexpensive way to add a colorful groundcover this year considering a 4″ plant can cost as much as $6 in the nursery! Leftovers are perfect for containers and baskets too. Buy a fun mix such as Wizard Mix and see what colors you get or something dark and dramatic like Black Dragon.

Licorice plant (Helichrysum)

Licorice plant

This drought tolerant, deer resistant groundcover has become a staple in my summer garden where its wide spreading branches weaves between shrubs and perennials, smothering weeds and filling gaps. I haven’t grown this from seed before and it looks as though it needs to be sown 10-12 weeks before setting out so I need to get cracking! Try Silver Mist.

Silver Falls dichondra (Dichondra argentea)

Love to use this as a spiller from hanging baskets and containers, where the strands of heart-shaped metallic leaves catch the light like a cascade of silver pennies. Silver Falls seems to do well in full or part sun and like many silver plants is drought tolerant and deer resistant.

Amaranth (Amaranthus)

A wild amaranth that caught my eye at Epcot a few years ago!

There are several varieties of this annual to look for that are especially noted for their foliage. Not for the faint of heart, Joseph’s Coat screams PARTY! Vivid yellow,red and green splashed leaves add a wonderful blast of late season color to the garden. Molten Fire, as its name suggests has bronze foliage that turns shades of crimson in late summer. Cinco de Mayo tries to outdo them both, boasting foliage in multi-color pinwheels of electric yellow, vivid orange and magenta. Imagine any of these next to a stand of tall grasses such as burgundy tipped Shenandoah switch grass (Panicum v. ‘Shenandoah’) or powder blue Dallas Blues switch grass (Panicum v. ‘Dallas Blues’).

Castor Oil Bean (Ricin communis)

Go BIG or go home? You’ll love this tropical looking beauty for the back of the border and larger containers where it can reach 5-10′ tall depending on the variety and conditions. Carmencita pictured above is a favorite of ours with its rich burgundy leaves and scarlet seed pods but there are others to choose from including New Zealand Purple (purple foliage and seedpods) and Zanzibarensis Mix, an 1870 heirloom, which sports immense green leaves with decorative ribbing and white or violet blooms. Ooh….

Biennials and Perennials

For those of you looking ahead, consider sowing seeds for foliage plants that will look their best next year – or the year after that. Again this is such an easy way to save money, especially if you need a large quantity of a particular plant for a themed border or sweeping vignette. These are a couple that I feel are worth the effort either because they are usually so expensive as individual plants or they can be hard to find.

Silver Sage (Salvia argentea)

Photo credit; Annie’s Annuals

Huge, felted silvery leaves that grow in luscious rosettes. A winner for hot spots in well drained soil silver sage is stunning.

Bugbane (Cimicifuga r. atropurpurea)

Bugbane is one of my favorite dark leaved perennials for a partially shaded border. named varieties can be as much as $15 for a gallon plant making this packet of seeds a really good deal! Vanilla fragrance from the tall spires of white flowers is an added bonus.

What are you growing from seed this year? Leave us a comment below or on our Facebook page. Itchy gardening fingers want to know!

Enjoy this post?

Then join in the foliage party – sign up to get these leafy snippets delivered right to your garden. (Follow the link in the sidebar)

We’ve been seeing some truly beautiful vegetable gardens this summer. Word has clearly got out that many of our favorite edibles have highly ornamental foliage that don’t need to be hidden away. Not only that but by looking for fun color echoes and contrasts you can create some striking vignettes and combinations.

Golden creeping Jenny festoons over the edge of this elevated container. A perfectly balanced design by our friends Peggy and Al Shelley

Our new book will showcase a few ideas but we thought you’d like a peek into our photo library to see what happens when you build a design by putting foliage FIRST – even if you’re going to eat it later – and add other colorful leaves, flowers and accessories.

Surprising Color Inspiration

Turn beans into a dazzling wall of color by planting tall lilies next to them

Beans and peas are a summer staple and quickly smother a trellis with lush leaves and dangling pods. Some varieties of bean have golden leaves, a few have colorful flowers and there are some exciting colored beans to choose from too but what do you do when yours are just ordinary green-leaved green-beans?

The design above was the mastermind of Whidbey Island, WA gardener/designer Elaine Michaelides as she selected lilies that echo the color of the structure behind it. These tall lilies grow as tall as the beans bringing color just where you need it. Stunning.

Look around – do you have a colorful chair, container or cushion you can use as a springboard?

Keep it Simple

Swiss chard and Shenandoah switch grass – perfect partners

This easy combo was part of a street-side planting in Langley on Whidbey Island, WA.

What about yellow chard with golden grasses? Bowle’s Golden sedge (Carex elata ‘Aurea’) would be pretty in a partially shaded setting.

Or the finely green and white variegated Overdam feather reed grass (Calamgrostis x acutiflora ‘Overdam’) with white chard for full or part sun.

A movable feast

Sunny yellows brighten bold silver-grey leaves; Epcot 2014

Artichokes are undeniably one of the most exciting, architectural vegetables in the garden with wide deeply serrated silver foliage and tall stems that bear blue thistle-like flowers followed by the edible artichoke itself.

Silver can read rather ‘grey’ in the garden, however, unless you brighten it with something fun like sunny yellow as the gardeners at Epcot did last year. They planted the artichoke in a vivid yellow wheelbarrow and surrounded it with yellow daisies – fabulous! Trailing bronze sweet potato vine tumbling from the wheelbarrow adds a finishing touch and ties visually to the nearby purple chair (and the color of the soon to follow artichoke blooms). Genius.

Small Space Solutions

Pallet gardens at Epcot

Even if you only have tiny planting pockets such as these pallet gardens, you can still get a designer look. Notice how the edible foliage textures and colors vary yet order is achieved by planting just one variety per row. A bright yellow chair and a few strips of cheery annuals makes sure the pollinators come to visit as well creating as a visual feast for us.

Escape route!

Break out of the vegetable garden.

This pumpkin mingles happily with golden hyssop, coral bells and abelia in a street-side planting in Langley, WA – and why not? Big, bold leaves and sunny yellow flowers as well as attractive fruit make this every bit as ornamental as neighboring shrubs.

Rhubarb and rhodies

I do something similar with my rhubarb and grow it in front of rhododendrons. The deer don’t eat it so there’s no reason for me to take up space in my fenced vegetable garden and I love the ornamental value it adds to the border.

What good ideas have you seen this summer? Leave us a comment below or tell us on Facebook!

Enjoy this post?

Then join in the foliage party – sign up to get these leafy snippets delivered right to your garden. (Follow the link in the sidebar)

Like this:

Summer is no time to be timid with your landscape design. We only have a short window for this garden magnificence and TEAM Fine Foliage says that you need to GO FOR IT! Whether in container or more large-scale, your garden should be a place that fills you with joy and excitement.
The color bonanza above is a BOLD over-the-top example and obviously not all of us can do this but please, this post BEGS you to imagine your world beyond the typical and everyday plants. Get crazy, think out of the box, try new things!Our post is LOADED this week with tropical feeling inspiration to shake you up a bit and get your design juices flowing with ideas that YOU can try. You can take these ideas and translate them from the idea of color schemes, textural ideas, scale, etc. The point is to study what brings you inspiration to try something NEW!Cool colors are your thing? Easy-peasy! This bromeliad sports quite the handsome lavender glow in the pot where a simple variegated ivy snuggles up the base of the plant and acts like an uplight. What could you use in place of this giant collectors plant that might be hardy in your garden?Do you yearn for a feminine esthetic? Citrus colors mixed with pale pink in this scene are not only soft and refined, but BOLD! If you simply MUST have your geraniums, then why not pair them with euphorbia ‘Fire Sticks’ and Carex ‘Cappuccino’ to mix it up a bit and try something unexpected.

The wow factor of these colors together is undeniable. Both subtle AND kind of savage at the same time! Acalypha and dracaena make fine friends in a container that compliments them with so much style!Could this dracaena BE any more well named? ‘Colorama’! Paired here in a captivating graphic combination with ‘Saffron-Spike’ Aphelandra they are a designers dream for inspiring new ideas! I know that your brain is just zooming with ideas isn’t it? This is how we come up with new ideas and plant combinations, we take fantasy and apply it to our own small-scale gardens and containers. What would your foliage plant combo be based on THIS photo?

HOLY COLOR WHEEL BATMAN! Yes, that is a LOT of color. Clear, true primary colors always work together. But here, the take away is to notice the strong, broad strappy leaves of the bromeliads give a green place for your eye to rest and cool off. So, even though this is based on flowers, it’s a foliage that saves the day!

The use of tasty edibles in containers is classy against the off-white stucco, but the DRAMA of the giant lemon colored schefflera in a deep blue pot adds that spark of powerful intensity. Not only that, it beautifully echoes the tile art on the wall too.

Here is a peek at how I translated a little bit of FIERCE into a container for one of my more adventurous clients this summer.

Have you got some tough shade but still want to have some intense combinations? Here are the couple of powerful combos that are under the shade of large trees. See? Scale, drama, texture bring this to design fruition with only a few small blooms!Here is my take on these extraordinary combinations for a shade container for that same courageous client….

Now go out there and snap some photos of YOUR FIERCE Fine Foliage designs and share them with us on Facebook!

Enjoy this post?

Then join in the foliage party – sign up to get these leafy snippets delivered right to your garden. (Follow the link in the sidebar)

With the 4th of July fast approaching, Team Fine Foliage is dealing with a 100 year, record-setting heat wave here in our typically mild northwest climate (as I sit in front of the AC writing this post). We have surpassed records made in past hot July and August months so far and there seems to be no end in sight. Most of our time when not working on the NEW BOOK “Foliage First”, has been holding a hose or setting up sprinklers.

Karen Chapman’s explosion of fireworks Brit style. 🙂

Since the vast majority of us can’t let off fireworks here due to the heat advisory and one half of Team Fine Foliage is British anyway, we can get crazy HERE! 🙂 I thought it was a good time to bring you foliage ideas that are both high energy color and high impact forms. Some spiky shapes that mimic fireworks are interesting and maybe they will give your imagination some ammunition to add some explosive foliage interest to YOUR landscape.

An Acalypha that I snapped in Disney World, BOLD!!

Red Castor Bean is a showstopper, but can be a bit hard to find. Those giant red leaves are about 2ft. across.

I could have stuck with the good old red, white and blue for this post, but I came across SO many other fun bits of color and detail for you that I gave up on that theme. But, there is always this one that you could do in a cobalt blue pot with red and white New Guinea Impatiens right? Someone make that combo and post it for us on the Fine Foliage page!

Drama with Caladium, never fails!

Red Mandevilla, red Rex begonia and a red sphere, now THAT is some color for a partially shady nook!

Another unique Acalypha harmonizing with orange, bronze and the lavender toned Asters.

Impatiens ‘Omeiana’ is ALMOST like fireworks in the shade garden!

A reddish Bromeliad in a patriotic blue pot makes a statement!

Canna makes a wonderful backdrop for airy Gamma Grass like little sparks shooting up from the pot!

Now THIS is a fireworks display!!

There are always blue foliage plants (for the good old Red, White and Blue) that are dramatic and stunning around, sometimes you just have to think out of the box a bit. 🙂

‘Silver Swan’ Euphorbia with ‘Quicksilver’ Hebe.

Melianthus

White foliage can be white HOT in sun or in shade!

‘Spider Web’ Fatsia

Creamy off-white foliage from variegated Cordyline is plenty classy on its own in a container.

Garden Art, soft Mexican feather grass and one lone canna leaf glowing like a burning ember make for an unexpectedly electric combo of form and colors.

HOLY COW Yankee Doodle look at that BIG BOLD showy foliage in white?

Look at that, it’s time for me to go out and water the landscape, we should talk succulents next time. 🙂

Enjoy this post?

Then join in the foliage party – sign up to get these leafy snippets delivered right to your garden. (Follow the link in the sidebar)

Sometimes you see a great design – and sometimes you see something that is exceptional, especially when you begin to sift through the layers of loveliness and see why it works.

So let me take this cabbage extravaganza apart for you.

The Foliage Framework

Wonderful bold foliage of golden yew forms a carpet

Paintings often benefit from a picture frame and this container is perfectly framed with sunny foliage. Overhead the golden locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’) rustles in the breeze while at the pedestal base a prostrate form of golden yew (Taxus cuspidata ‘Nana Aurescens’) repeats the color on stiff branches.

Connections

Cleverly linking these two are trailing strands of golden creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummelaria ‘Aurea’) cascading from the container.

Wonderful layers of color and texture

The container itself is a feast of color and texture with the bold cabbage clearly being the focal point. Behind it Ascot Rainbow spurge (Euphorbia) explodes with a froth of flowers and foliage in shades of soft blue-green and buttery yellow accented by rose colored stems and new growth at the end of each branch, Those warm tones are what makes the rich cranberry flowers of the Choca Mocha cosmos look so perfectly at home.

The elevated edible

By placing the container on a pedestal this becomes a real showpiece and a great example of how focal points and foliage go hand in hand.

Learn more about Foliage and Focal Points – for FREE!

Now here’s an exciting offer that you can’t possibly refuse!

The British half of Team Fine Foliage (i.e. me; Karen) is launching an exciting garden design course on Craftsy called…..FOLIAGE AND FOCAL POINTSand our fabulous book is the recommended text! So to celebrate the launch AND the gold award Fine Foliage has just received we are offering one free course plus a signed copy of our book to a lucky winner.

Already a Craftsy user (addictive isn’t it?!) then just follow the link and you’re set. New to Craftsy? You’ll love it! You can use the link to sign up for free then you will also be entered to win. Craftsy has all sorts of cool classes from gardening to photography and woodwork – check it out!

The lucky winner will be notified on the day my class goes LIVE – September 9th. Oh and the wonderful elevated edible combo? That’s from the class 🙂

Enjoy this post?

Then join in the foliage party – sign up to get these leafy snippets delivered right to your garden. (Follow the link in the sidebar)

When we are choosing what I like to call the backbone of the color palette in the garden, I frequently remind my clients that they need to remember to keep a few colors in repetition throughout the entire landscape to visually hold it all together. In other words, you should be able to take a passing glance across a swath of landscape or even a small vignette and your eyes should be able to hit a similar color tone like a musical beat, in regular intervals. This creates a visual rhythm, it can be all kinds of foliage that brings the musicality together, but it can also be art and accessories too.

The ‘Lawson’s’ Cypress above is going to be spectacular in a few years as its columnar structure brings some much-needed verticality to the fat bushiness of the hydrangea’s.

I was brainstorming in the garden last night when I suddenly realized how somewhat subconsciously I had used the color blue into my foliage much more than I had really realized. I knew I had tied in the accessories, but although I adore blue foliage, I hadn’t really noticed until just then how prominent it was really becoming in my own landscape. So, I thought I would take you on a little tour of my own private “Blues and Jazz Club” here in the ‘burbs of Seattle. 😉

As we move across my tiny garden, you notice my accessories of a vivid turquoise blue. The umbrella and the obelisk for my container of jasmine are bright and happy even on a cloudy summer day!

Then a small river of watery blues in tumbled glass takes your eye up to one of my beloved pedestal containers where a piece of art glass (by Barbara Sanderson of Glass Gardens NW) is part of the planted combination where blue is prominent. The chalky blue foliage of the Melianthus is striking!

The lovely thing about blue foliage is that you can use it in shades and tones, just like greens. Some are more silvery and some lean towards more gray-green with just hints of blue.

I think that gardeners really underestimate just how beautiful blueberries can be simply for the foliage! That blue-green foliage has so much personality. And when I can reap the berry-liscious rewards for having them so close to my back door, even better!

Euphorbia ‘Rigida’ has been on my list to find forever, FINALLY I got it! That foliage hits lots of my happy little OCD buttons as a Virgo. As it gets older, you will see what I mean when I post more photos. But here against the backdrop of another wonderful blue foliage in the form of Hebe ‘Quicksilver’ they make a fine pairing of two blue textures.

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Blue Surprise’ sits among some golds, burgundy and greens as a lone blue standout.

I suppose it must stand to reason that I have been using blue conifers as a VERY consistent vertical design element without really considering that I was doing it. I was just picking what I loved, which is the big “do as I say, not as I do” moment for many of my clients, right?
This particular conifer is a favorite of BOTH Karen Chapman and myself as we both have a particular affinity for this ‘Wissel’s Saguaro’ false cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Wissel’s Saguaro’). You can read more about Karen Chapman’s use of this plant here in her blog, Le Jardinet.

Even a little hint of steely, intense blue as with this Bog Rosemary (Andromeda polifolia ‘Blue Ice’) are enough to draw a color combination together with other spaces in the garden.

Even outside my back gate, a little combination of plants that tolerate the abuse of being forgotten outside my regular view brings the blues in with an iridescent glazed pot and blue succulents.

A new blue pine standard found a home here last week, so it sits in its temporary pot with a friendly and somewhat slow-growing Ginkgo shrub ‘Munchkin’ sitting above it make a cute little blue pairing.

This concludes our tour of my own mini ‘House of Blues’. Who knows, next year maybe my color kick will be something completely “out of the blue”! Sorry, couldn’t resist that one. 😉

Enjoy this post?

Then join in the foliage party – sign up to get these leafy snippets delivered right to your garden. (Follow the link in the sidebar)

I live in the land of deer. I have more hoof prints through my borders than slug trails and that’s saying something. In fact when my daughter got married in our garden last summer one of the last minute ‘to do’ items wasn’t to check for clean hand towels or ice cubes but to sweep out the deer tracks.

So I have great empathy with gardeners who desperately want a beautiful garden and not just a buffet. My go-to plants may be different from yours by virtue of climate, personal preference or local restrictions but my aim is to encourage you that you CAN have great foliage and that Bambi can simply find his supper elsewhere.

Barberries(Berberis) are invasive in several states but here in Seattle we are fortunate that they are not a problem and we have lots of great colors , shapes and sizes to choose from. Some of my favorites are Red Carpet (groundcover 2′ h x 4’w), Orange Rocket (orange-red, columnar), Concorde (grape-purple , 3’h x 3′ wide and Lime Glow (variegated lime and cream, ~4′ h x 3’w).

Goshiki Japanese false holly(Osmanthus h. ‘Goshiki’) looks like holly and is spiky like holly – but isn’t. Great green and yellow variegated evergreen foliage, this is one of our favorites for containers as well a landscapes.

There are SO many great fernsfor shady areas – some prefer more moisture while others like it dry but as a rule deer leave them alone. Whether you want a groundcover, an evergreen mound or a tall punctuation point you’ll find something with fronds. My favorites include autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora, coppery color, 3′ x 3′), Himalayan maidenhair fern (Adiantum venustem, 3′ x 3′), and royal fern (Osmunda regalis, ~4′ tall)

Smelly things

It’s true – Bambi can smell, and he/she doesn’t enjoy our wonderful aromatic herbs as much as we do. Take advantage of the fact and indulge in lavender,sage, and thyme in the garden. Drifts of bronze fennel or dill can provide culinary treats while also acting as a barrier.

Silver things

Many silver leaved plantsare drought tolerant, have a felted surface and are ignored by deer. Think of lambs ears (Stachys byzantina), wormwood (Artemisia), Jerusalem sage (Phlomis sp.) and the giant cardoon (Cynara cardunculus). Sounds like a great garden to me!

Surprisingly deer do not generally feast on grasses– maybe they are just too full of my Heuchera. That definitely opens up the design doorway for all sorts of heights, colors and form from the weeping Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) to upright feather reed grass (Calamagrostis sp.).

No real category here but I’m pleased to see that they have also ignored andromeda (Pieris japonica), Axminster Gold comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum ) , smoke bushes (Cotinus) and rhubarb.

While this list is far from definitive and indeed only represents a very small percentage of the deer resistant plants in my own garden, I hope it gives you a sense of what is possible. Many of these plants are also drought tolerant (since we are on well water that is an important consideration for me too). Careful selection is key but even then the deer will outwit you occasionally. For example while it is true that they don’t eat spirea – they DO eat the flowers.

Now as for the rabbits……………

What are your favorite deer resistant FOLIAGE plants?

Want even more ideas?

Join in the foliage party – sign up to get these leafy snippets delivered right to your garden. (Follow the link in the sidebar)